CNN
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A five-month-long slumber party. A college dorm. An introvert’s hell.

Those are just some of the words residents of Antarctica use to describe life in the world’s coldest, most mysterious continent.

In 1959, 12 countries – including Chile, Japan, Australia and the United States – signed the Antarctic Treaty, pledging that the seventh continent would only be used “for peaceful purposes only.” As a result, there are no military bases there, although military planes and ships can bring people and supplies.

That means that only a few thousand humans can say that they have lived in…